Ventnor Blog

News just in from the White Air HQ is that indie rockers, The Pigeon Detectives will be headlining at White Air this year.

The line up for the live music stage and parties is cracking, with the likes of The Operators, Sam Isaac and Mama’s Gun hitting the stage, whilst the legendary Rob da Bank takes to the decks for the White Air party.

Check out the White Air Web site for more details.

Many thanks to Jane Garner for sending in news of how Ventnor’s children did in the Primary School Island Games at the weekend. Congratulations to the Ventnor team who came second! Ed

I thought it would be nice for Ventnor to hear how well their young children did on Saturday at the first Primary School Island Games. (more…)

The Big Bike returns to the Wight in a couple of weeks time to help raise funds for the Earl Mountbatten Hospice.

The bike need 15 riders and every seat is sponsored. It’ll travel around various locations on the Wight, where the teams have their fun filled ride.

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With only a week or so to get over Bestival in September, come the 19th it starts all over again with the White Air Extreme Sports Festival.

As well as all the great sports activities to watch and take part in, there’ll also be live music from 12pm-10pm on Friday and Saturday and 12pm-6pm on Sunday.

The lineup is starting to be confirmed and the thumbs up have already come for Sam Issac, Guy Page Trio, The Operators, Bastila, Lucid, The Wild Oats, Fred Jones and The Kurves.

Spinning the vinyl for at least one of the late night parties will be none other than Bestival head honcho himself, Rob da Bank.

The White Air RAF Multi-sport Park for 2008 has been extended yet again to include even more sports action, arts and djs!

King Ramps are bringing their brand new 5ft mini-ramp (like the one pictured which featured at the Goldcoast Oceanfest, to White Air this year, supported by the new healthy juice drink, Suso. (more…)

If you’ve been running out of things to do with the kids this week, how about heading over to Sandown where the Sandown Carnival Association have lots of free activities still happening this half term.

Today and tomorrow, they invite you to join them for Puppet Costume workshops.

Tony, a top carnival designer will be making two large scale puppets for entry in this year’s carnival at Sandown Town Hall. (more…)

We’re all becoming wearily-familiar with how often private information about us is being lost by government departments.

The latest to become public (how many more of them are there that we don’t hear about?), concerns the Isle of Wight.

The data of 38,650 NHS patients going back as far as 1996 have been lost on their way between London and Sandown Health Centre on the Island.

Don’t laugh here, but the reason it was being sent was … to check the backup, in case the data was LOST!
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A NEW GROUP is being formed to support one of the Island’s most popular tourist attractions. (more…)

Don’t forget that tonight is the chance for those in the area of Sandown Hig School to attend the School Reorganisation Public Meeting.

Councillors David Pugh, Alan Wells and Director of Childrens Services, Steve Beynon will be in attendance, presenting their proposals for the schools shake up.

For those unable to attend, we’re hoping to put out an audio recording of the meeting held in Ventnor last week which will feature the presentations by the three above.

The fun kicks off at 7pm and runs until 9pm.

Here’s a weird one. A 42-year-old Sandown man was arrested on suspicion of gaining unauthorised access to computers last week.

He was parked between 11.30pm Tuesday 4th December and 00.20am Wednesday 5th December, in an Skoda Octavia car in Fitzroy Street, Sandown, tapping away on this computer with an aerial attached to it.

It’s thought that he was attempting to access someone’s wireless network.

He’s been bailed and will reappear at Newport police station on 30 January, 2008.

Saturday night At Sandown Holiday Park sees the return of the Wight Trash Christmas Party.

It’s going to be a night of electric heaven with vinyl pleasure being delivered by from ElectroMagnetic Workshop, Cooley Haste, Aaron Isted and Lektroluxe.

Check their website for more info. Should be a corker.

As the Christmas party season draws closer, we bring you more dates for your diaries.

Following the success of it’s last bash in May this year, Wight Trash will be hosting Electric Dreams on 15th December at Sandown Holiday Centre.

It’s going to be a night of electric heaven with vinyl pleasure being delivered by from ElectroMagnetic Workshop, Cooley Haste, Aaron Isted and Lektroluxe.

You have to buy tickets in advance and we hear that they’re going fast, so pop over to the Wight Trash website where you can order online for £5 plus postage. (more…)

Just in case you didn’t notice the press release from the council press office a couple of weeks ago about an event at Dinosaur Isle tonight, here are the details again.

There be scary stories, fancy dress (with prizes for the most original and scariest), and they advise you to take a torch (or leave it at home if you’re feeling brave).

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Anyone who saw We Will Rock You and were impressed with the singing talent on show (and why wouldn’t you be?) will be pleased to hear that three members of the cast sing and play as part of a band on the Island called Lucid.

They originally started out with just Ollie Dulcie and Blue Brown, but were soon joined by Blue’s sis, Sunny.
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On the 12th of this month Quay Arts hosted an ‘Electro Acoustic Extravaganza’ show-casing the talents of local musicians Staff Brett and Tali Trow whilst raising funds for, and awareness of, the Tiger Sanctuary at IOW Zoo in Sandown.

Tali opened with a lyrical acoustic set, very ably accompanied by ‘Mr. Brad’ on baby grand.

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IMAGINE yourself in the dark being stalked by a giant dinosaur 125million years ago.

Well, that’s exactly the spooky experience in store for children and their families at Dinsoaur Isle Museum in Sandown this Halloween.
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After you’ve been up to East Cowes on Saturday to take part in the Big Draw, why not head over to Sandown for an introductory storytelling workshop as part of the Wight Words festival?

The art of storytelling is one that can come in handy in many situations. The obvious distracting tired nippers springs to mind, but it could also be utilised to get a point across to work colleagues. It’ll also add great kudos when sitting round a fire with friends swapping tales and anecdotes.

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Yesterday saw the final day of White Air 2007 and what a week it’s been! In case you didn’t make it down to catch the last day’s racing, here are the final results.

The winner of the World Cup Windsurfing long distance event was Dan Simpson in the pro men’s category, Xavier Ferlet came first in the masters category, and Liam Round won the junior category of the two mile race. Well done to you all.

In the UK Freestyle Windsurfing Championships, the competitors were judged on their ‘fluidity and performance’, including whether they finish the trick properly. They all put on a great show, displaying a number of tricks including the strangely named spocks, flackers, and willy skippers (don’t ask).
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There is loads of stuff going on over the weekend at White Air, but you must make sure that you don’t miss the Red Arrows fantastic display on Saturday morning at 10am afternoon at 2pm.

We watched a programme about the Red Arrows a couple of weeks ago and the stunts they perform are out of this world.

All pretty scary stuff, but they really know what they’re doing and I am sure will continue to impress all tomorrow morning.

[image courtesy of Royal Navy]

The 2007 White Air Festival has been brilliant so far, there is so much going on and the vibe on site is fantastic.

White Air have been putting out full reports of the day, so if you haven’t been able to head down there yet this week, you can still catch up with what’s been happening.

Of course, we’ve been down there too and have a handful of podcasts for you to listen to.
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There quite a few different types of food at Wight Air this year.

We noticed that there was a great looking Yurt in the same area as the Platform One music stage.

Turned out that it was a Japanese restaurant serving Sushi and Japanese food.

We chatted to one of the people running it.

A much better day yesterday I felt; the sun was out, far more people were around, and there was an all round, better atmosphere to the venue.

Probably a disappointing day for the windsurfers though, as there seemed to be very little wind, but for those of us on dry land, we couldn’t have asked for better.

Thankfully our group seems to be getting back into the swing of doing performances, yesterday afternoons display being the best yet in my opinion, and by the sound of it, the crowd seemed to think so to!

In fact, as the morning demonstration went well, we all loosened up and had a good laugh adding in little bits of comedy here and there, such as the ever popular Oliver Twist heel click.

The morning demo wasn’t without its thrills either though, with one of my tumble runs finishing millimetres away from of a member of the public, who walked straight through our performance area seemingly unaware!

Read Part One

When you’re at Wight Air, don’t forget that there’s stuff going on outside the main arena too.

On the way up the hill, towards where all of the mountain board ‘have a go’ sessions are running, you’ll find a Children’s art tent on the left hand side.

Inside we found Tina from Tina Craft, who gave us the low down on what kids can get up to.

There are two sessions running each day.

It’s ‘beadwork for beginners’ from 11am-1pm today and ‘jewellery from recycled junk’ between 3-5pm.

We’re really chuffed to have local lad, Sam Snudden, sharing his perspective of White Air with the readers of VentnorBlog. He is taking part in several displays over the week, one of which we caught yesterday.

He performs with a large group of enthusiastic and obviously very talented gymnasts (some pictured here). It’s an inspiring display and well worth catching. They perform at 11.30 or 3pm today and tomorrow. Here’s what he had to say ….

I am a performer with the extreme gymnastics team, and this is our first year doing demonstrations at White Air.

The venue and line up for the week is quite clearly larger and more diverse than ever before, and possibly the best addition is the platform one band stand; for me live music never fails to impress, and it is brilliant to see local up and coming bands showcase their talent.
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To give you some idea of the diversity, we head around a few of the new organisations involved with this years Wight Air.

Mick Smith, director of Quay Arts, has, as a follow up of the FreeQuay experimental arts event earlier in the summer, put on an interesting tent with digital video editing with John Cattle and a have-a-go session, making dance music, with the multi-talented Andy Jones.

John and his team will be out and about during the festival filming the punters and competitors and then editing back in the tent.

You can also then create the music with Andy and have the whole thing sent through to your mobile to treasure.